The Sheridan Cafe

The Sheridan Cafe located at the corner of Madison and Perry - In 1936 the Sheridan Café was owned by John Syribeys who had previously owned the Splendid Café in Corinth, MS. Like the café sign in Mississippi, the sign at the Sheridan Café used the slogan, “We serve to serve again.”

In 1937, the café was owned by John Sideris and Petro “Pete” Syribeys. Also working at the café during that period was Gus Polizos.

In 1942, Gus’s brother-in-law, Gus Berdanis bought the Sheridan Café for $10,000. The Polizos brothers each gave $1,800 towards the purchase. In 1944, Gus Polizos moved into the Sheridan Café Rooms and lived there for free while he worked in the Café. He worked for six weeks and made $225. The Sheridan was open 24 hours a day.

In 1945, Gus became a partner of the Sheridan Café after the war by paying each of the existing partners, Gus Berdanis and John Sideris, a lump sum of $2,500. The partners rented the building which included the rooms upstairs, restaurant downstairs, and barber shop next door. They worked there for the next 11 years. It first opened as a hotel with 20 rooms and a soda fountain downstairs. It was named after Camp Sheridan, a WWI Army base located just north of Montgomery. The hotel was later split, and Pete Syribeys rented ten of the twenty rooms and converted the soda fountain into a restaurant. The furniture was bought from the Splendid Café in Corinth, MS. When Gus became a partner, the rental fee for the ten rooms and the restaurant was $275 per month. The barber shop next door brought in $35 per month in rent.

(photo courtesy of Patsy Thrailkill-Persons. Patsy's mother was a waitress at the Sheridan and can be see standing near the back. Info on the cafe from Gus Polizos web page)